How to Successfully Apply For an Entrepreneur Visa in Hong Kong

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Feature Article, Investment Visas, Musing, VG Front Page / No responses

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Got An MPF Refund | Impact On A PR Application | Are You Now Disqualified?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Your Question Answered / 2 responses

I Have Sworn A Declaration That I Am Leaving Hong Kong To Receive An MPF Refund …

Am I Now Precluded From Making an Application for the Right of Abode Here?

QUESTION

I have been resident in Hong Kong for 5 and a half years on a working visa.

I lost my job over 6 months ago and thought that I had no option but to leave.

I obtained the MPF refund in May and signed a statutory declaration indicating that I would leave in early June.

I then realised that I had been too hasty and that I could still have applied for the right of abode at the end of the seven year residency period.

I now want to do this and either study or work if i can get a job until such time as I can apply.

Is it too late now that i have signed the statutory declaration and received the repayment?

Is there anything I can do to remedy the position?

Thank you in anticipation of your reply.

PODCAST SUMMARY

Understanding MPF Refund and Its Implications

In this Post I will unravel the complexities surrounding MPF (Mandatory Provident Fund) refund and its potential impact on your eligibility for the right of abode in Hong Kong. I’ll explore the steps you can take to address this situation and ensure a smooth path towards permanent residency.

MPF Refund: Exploring the Process

To begin, let’s delve into the process of obtaining an MPF refund. While I may not be an expert in the intricacies of MPF policies, it’s crucial to understand that making a statutory declaration for an MPF refund involves a commitment to leave Hong Kong. If you’ve received the refund but have had a change of circumstances, such as deciding to stay in Hong Kong, it’s advisable to contact the MPF authorities promptly.

Reversing Your MPF Declaration

Reversing the MPF declaration may not be a straightforward process, but it’s essential to reach out to the MPF authorities and explain your new situation. They are likely to have protocols in place for handling such scenarios. While the exact details may vary, addressing the issue with the MPF officials is a crucial step in ensuring that your financial matters align with your revised plans in Hong Kong.

The Path to the Right of Abode

Now, let’s focus on your eligibility for the right of abode in Hong Kong. If you’ve been residing in the city for five and a half years and can maintain a residence visa throughout the full seven years, you have a chance to apply for the right of abode. The key criterion is demonstrating that you are settled in Hong Kong.

The Challenge of the MPF Declaration

Here’s where the challenge arises. Your prior MPF declaration indicated that you intended to leave Hong Kong, which could be seen as conflicting with the notion of being settled in the city. To address this, you’ll need to take steps to undo the prior declaration.

Demonstrating Settlement in Hong Kong

To successfully secure the right of abode, it’s crucial to prove to the Immigration Department that you have become settled in Hong Kong by the time you reach the seven-year mark. This includes maintaining your residence visa permissions, potentially through studying or changing your employment sponsorship, and establishing a life that reflects your settled status.

Last Words …

While the MPF scenario in your situation may present challenges, it’s not necessarily fatal to your ability to obtain the right of abode in Hong Kong. Addressing the MPF declaration and demonstrating your settled status in the city over the next one and a half years can pave the way for a successful application. Remember to reach out to the MPF authorities promptly and take the necessary steps to align your financial commitments with your intentions in Hong Kong. With careful planning and action, you can work towards securing your right of abode.

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What Can I Do If My Employment Contract Ends On The Same Day As My Hong Kong Work Visa And I Need To Stay Here A While Longer To Sort Out My Affairs?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Your Question Answered / No responses

Employment law and immigration law are often overlapping but must be dealt with separately…this post talks about what can be done if someone’s employment contract ends on the same day as their Hong Kong work visa, but they need to stay in Hong Kong for a while longer to sort out their affairs.

What can I do If my employment contract ends on the same day as my Hong Kong work visa and I need to stay here a while longer to sort out my affairs?

QUESTION

I am in a fix with a difficult-to-deal-with local company.

My 2 year contract with them expires this October 20. My work visa expires on the same day.

Is my employer legally required to serve a one month notice?

If the HR Department mention nothing to me, is my last day at work October 20, and am I required to leave the country? I am Canadian.

Is my employer required to contact the Immigration Department and notify them of my employment ending? At what date?

If I leave Hong Kong on the 20th of October to Macau for the night and return on the 21st, can I come in on a 3 month visitor visa so I can pack up the house?

Or is it better to go to the Immigration Department on the 18th/19th and apply for an extension to pack up my things and leave Hong Kong?

ANSWER

Whilst I’m not an employment lawyer, I’m not really qualified to discuss matters of employment law, it does seem to me that if you have a fixed term employment contract which is going to expire in your case as of October the 20th, then you need to look to your contract to see if there is any arrangement that speaks to an extension of that employment contract and if there is a specific notice period that the employer will need to give you in order to advise you of the termination of your employment as at the date of your contract termination too.

So look to the contract to see what that’s all about. But, in any event, all of that notwithstanding the question of your ongoing employment visa is tied directly to your ongoing employment. Therefore, if your employer has not yet indicated the possibility of an extension to your employment contract it will be the case that come October 20, when your current employment visa expires, effectively you will no longer be lawfully employable in Hong Kong.

I understand your challenge insomuch as well if you’re no longer going to be working in Hong Kong after October the 20th, you can’t just, in a sense, stop working and then mystically, magically wonderfully, before midnight that day head off back to Canada.

You’re going to need to have some time in order to manage your affairs here in the wake of your intending departure. So there are two things that you can do. One which is recommended, one which I would suggest you avoid.

The first thing that you can do is to go down to the immigration department on the 21st and explain effectively what your situation is and ask them to give you an extension.

You may find that they will give you a temporary extension for perhaps a week, maybe two at the most in your circumstances. And that is barely recommended because of the way that the immigration officers in immigration tower usually consider these applications.

The second option that you have, which is the one that I recommend, is that on the 20 October, you take the 11:00 p.m. ferry to Macau, and then after you’ve arrived in Macau, immediately jump back on the 01:00 a.m. ferry on the 21 October back to Hong Kong, and then the immigration officer upon arrival will admit you as a Canadian national for 90 days as a visitor, and that three months will then give you all the time that you need to finalise your affairs and make your exit from Hong Kong to return home. So, that’s what I would suggest you do.

I hope you find this useful.

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Losing Hong Kong Unconditional Stay Status Due To Studies Abroad – A Family’s Dilemma

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Long Stay & PR, Refusals & Appeals, Your Question Answered / 5 responses

One of the more upsetting parts of being a Hong Kong immigration consultant is learning that one family member alone, due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, finds herself the odd one out by not having been able to correctly manage her visa status here – and all, essentially, through no fault of her own.

QUESTION

“Hi, My mother married a Hong Kong-Chinese national (step father) and sponsored my stay in Hong Kong to study when I was a child. I stayed and grew up in Hong Kong for more than six years and was holding unconditional stay status. My parents opted to send me to Malaysia to finish my secondary school up to tertiary school. I was not able to come back within one year of leaving Hong Kong. Before I reached 18, my mother reapplied me for sponsorship, the immigration delayed the response for my application and when I ultimately reached my 18th birthday, then they informed me I was too old. I came back to Hong Kong four years after my departure and I was forced to be a Visitor.

I have heard some people with the same case as mine (departing Hong Kong for an extended amount of time for studies) and where able to keep their residence status because they were STUDYING when away. I really want to be reunified with my family even though it was more than ten years when I first left Hong Kong. Among my mother, father and two siblings I am the only one not holding a valid I.D. card because of this.

Any thoughts?”

ANSWER

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Can I Remain In Hong Kong As A Visitor After My Employment Visa Expires?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Visitor Visas, Your Question Answered / 1 response

Simple question this one with an easy answer and indicative of the fact that, even though quite a straight forward issue, the information is not otherwise readily available anywhere else on the web.

QUESTION

I am a Canadian citizen, working in Hong Kong holding an employment visa for 7 weeks. I want to stay after my job is finished (work visa will expire at the same time) to see Hong Kong, then travel to Macau and Thailand.

Do I need to have my visa changed from employment to visitor?

Thank you so much for your help.

ANSWER

At the time that your employment visa limit of stay is due to expire, if you don’t have the continuing rationale for remaining in Hong Kong as an employee, because your contract has come to an end and in any event, it was just a short term employment visa;nonetheless then, for you to remain in Hong Kong as a visitor will not be problematic at all, but there will be a process that you need to go through in order to achieve this outcome.

There are two ways to go about doing it. The first is to go down to the Immigration Department to the visitor extension section, wait probably three quarters of a day, and get yourself up to a maximum of possibly two week visitor visa extension upon request of an immigration officer going through the visa extension process, and they will readily grant you, no doubt, a two week extension to your present limit of stay, converting you from an employment visa holder to a visitor at that time.

So that should not be problematic at all. The real problem there, of course, is that even it’s going to take a long time, it gets very busy. And the visitor visa guys at the Immigration Department are  under a lot of pressure and they tend to be somewhat brusque in the way that they process such applicants. But you will get the extension, so don’t worry about that.

Alternatively, and ideally, what I would suggest that you do is – on the final date of your current limit of stay as an employment visa holder, take in a sense the 11:00 evening ferry over to Macau. Arrive in Macau and come back from Macau into Hong Kong on the very next ferry, which will bring you into Hong Kong on the next day, the day after your current limit to stay as an employment visa holder expires.

And at the point of arrival, the immigration officer will only be able to grant you a visitor visa because that’s the only status that will be open to you, given that your employment visa will have expired the day before. And as a Canadian national, you will get a 90 day period of stay; and that’s the same for most western nationalities, such as most Europeans and also Americans for that matter. And, at that point, you’ll be then granted the time that you need in Hong Kong to complete your final activities here as a visitor. Okay, I hope this helps.

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I Have Been In Hong Kong For 2 Years As A Visitor And Have 2 Work Visa Refusals – What’s The Risk Of Refused Entry Again In My Circumstances?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Refusals & Appeals, Visitor Visas, Your Question Answered / No responses

How is the Shenzhen Shuttle impacted where there is a history of long stay visits in Hong Kong combined with multiple employment visa refusals?

QUESTION

Hi,

I have been in Hong Kong for 2 years as a Visitor and my work visa application was denied for the second time a couple of weeks ago.

My visitor visa doesn’t run out until next week. I wanted to ask if my refused visa application will have an impact on my re-entry when I go to Macau to renew my visitor visa. I’ve been going to Macau for renewal every few months and there hasn’t been a problem but all of those times, I either wasn’t applying or it was in progress.

Now that it has definitely been denied, how heavy is the risk that I will be told to go back to Switzerland? (I have a Swiss passport).

I also applied for a Work Holiday visa a couple of years ago that was denied.

My boyfriend lives here with an Italian passport and so I’m very worried about possible separation.

ANSWER

When you present yourself for admission as a visitor to Hong Kong, the examining officer at the airport or at the boundary is assessing your bona fide as a visitor. And in this regard, it takes into consideration a number of factors. He does a risk assessment in terms of, you know, who you are, how old you are, possibly what you look like, an assessment into your means, have you got a return ticket, etc.?

They will also look to see your pattern and frequency of visits to Hong Kong. And essentially, if you’ve been coming and going nonstop for two years now, engaging in what I’ve couched as the Shenzhen shuttle, albeit going by Macau, you are, in any event, irrespective of what’s happened down at the Immigration Tower, regards your previous visa refusals, at risk of not being assessed as a bona fide visitor to Hong Kong if for no other reason that the officer can see you’ve been here for two years and may suspect that you’ve been breaching your conditions of stay by uptaking unauthorised employment.

So, presently, when you present yourself, you may get an experience with an officer where he essentially waves you through at the point of doing the assessment. The immigration officer at the border or at the airport won’t have immediate access to the knowledge that you have had previous visa applications refused. But once they do stop you and inquire into further details as to what’s keeping you in Hong Kong, then clearly that will come out. And, the fact that you do have efforts on file of trying to take up residence for employment purposes that have been repeatedly refused makes you a very high risk candidate for admission as a visitor.

So, you are essentially at risk in any event, but elevated. So because of your history of prior refusals, by the way, your working holiday visa was refused not because there’s anything wrong with you as an applicant other than the fact that you’re a nationality that doesn’t qualify for one.

So it’s your two prior employment visa refusals that are an issue for you. But then you see, you’ve got the issue as regards your relationship with your boyfriend and that is clearly a reason for you spending as much time here as you are. Is it sufficient for the immigration department to just admit you nonetheless? Well, given that they won’t have all the facts and information and evidence on hand at the time that they’re assessing you for admission as a visitor the next time around it’s difficult for them to essentially rely on the representations that you’ll be making to them as to the nature and the state of your relationship with your boyfriend.

So what I would suggest that you do to try to at least ameliorate this, if you do get stopped, is to have with you all his information. A copy of his passport, his visa label, a copy of his ID card, his mobile number. Indeed, a letter from him addressed to the examining officer at the airport or at the border stating that you’re in a loving, committed relationship and that he’s prepared to assume responsibility for you during the currency of your next visit; and it may well be that information could be just enough in a go or no go situation for the officer to admit you for a further three months.

However,  that approach is certainly not sustainable and you are in a sense relying on the discretion of the examining officer to cut you some slack in real terms. Because two years as a visitor is a long time. Your nationality gets three months. That’s a reasonable timeframe to be visiting Hong Kong as far as policy goes.

Of course I know that you do have a reason for being here longer than, but unfortunately immigration rules all over the world are such that they don’t allow unlimited de facto residents to people who visit; and you are at risk of the steam running out of your engine in this respect.

Now a longer term solution might be that if you’re in a loving committee life partner relationship and you and your boyfriend are both free to marry but choose not to, and you can show to the Immigration Department that during these two years you have been cohabiting in Hong Kong, then you may be able to secure a prolonged visitor visa upon application to the department on the strength that you are essentially de facto spouses.

Your boyfriend will clearly have to participate in this application and sponsor you for this; it’s an out of policy application. So there’s not even a section in the immigration department that’s set up to deal with these applications. You really are once again throwing yourself at the feet of the immigration officers to positively consider an application for you not to be separated from your boyfriend given the nature and the longevity and the committed sense of your relationship with them.

So there are plenty of resources on our websites that speak to prolonged visitor visas; the mere fact of having one in the pipeline, again, doesn’t automatically address your bona fide as a visitor when you are undertaking the Shenzhen shuttle; and because it does take between, well, six to eight months for these things to play themselves through, normally could be a little bit quicker; but normally, because it’s out of policy, they are quite sort of long in the applying. So you will have to run the gauntlets of the Shenzhen shuttle probably on two or three more occasions to you get an outcome on that application. So that’s really the sort of the lot of it for you, I’m afraid.

In a nutshell, there’s a bit of light at the end of the tunnel, but you keep relying on the Shenzhen shuttle, then I think you’re going to find sooner or later, the hammer’s going to fall, and the sword of Damocles will have worked to end your time with your boyfriend.

I hope you found that useful.

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How Can I Resign From My Current Job BEFORE My Hong Kong Change Of Employer Application Has Been Approved?

Posted by The Visa Geeza / in Employment Visas, Your Question Answered / No responses

Hong Kong change of employer application – how can you readily manage the should-you-resign-before-your-change-of-work-visa-sponsorship-application-has-been-approved conundrum?

QUESTION

I have held a Hong Kong work visa for 2 .5 years now and I am currently in the process of finalizing an offer letter with a new employer here.

I need your advice in relation to the timing of me notifying my current employer that I am set to leave.

So should I resign after a sign the offer letter or wait for my change of employer / work visa application to get approved from Hong Kong Immigration Department?

ANSWER

The Immigration Department are very familiar with this problem and therefore they work the system to the extent that they will receive an application from you in anticipation of you joining a new employer, and as they give due consideration to the application and they are about ready to approve your application, they will then ask you to supply what we’ve couched as a bye-bye letter, which is essentially correspondence between you and your employer, which speaks to the final date of employment termination in your current job.

And when you submit a copy of that, and usually it’s a copy of your resignation letter or if you’ve been a redundant, your redundancy letter, but specifically, if you’re still employed and you want to move to a new position, it would be a letter of resignation from you, acknowledged as received by the current employer, and on that letter will be the final date of employment termination.

And when you adduce that letter to the Immigration Department upon their request, they’re essentially sending you the signal that your application is about to be approved, and therefore you can quite safely resign from your current employer, knowing that the moment that you submit your bye-bye letter to the Immigration Department, they will issue you a letter of approval stating that you’ll be able to uptake the new employment normally from the day after the date on your bye-bye letter.

So that’s how the Immigration Department manages that process.

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